My bullshit filter is humming. I wonder if all the publicity and media saturation over yet another terrorist threat–this time some kind of high tech ersatz underpants bomb plot–is another example of the kind of sting operations our heavily funded, personal liberty-intruding FBI, TSA, CIA, etc. agencies have concocted to get publicity and justification for their behavior and existence.

Did the CIA initiate this plot? I’d not be surprised to learn that they did.

No one can look inside Obama’s head, of course. But the most likely resolution to this mystery is that he simply hasn’t been honest about his stance on gay marriage. That is, he supports it, but he doesn’t think he can afford to make this support public. How else to explain the pretzel-like logic undergirding his stance? Find me another left-leaning former constitutional law professor and community organizer who (1) believes gay equality is a civil-rights issue, and (2) believes gay equality should be handled at the state level (a stance Carney reinforced on Monday). It makes no sense. Obama, who came of age politically with the echoes of the civil-rights fights of the 1960s still ringing, should know how these claims sound to gay Americans and their allies.

My issue has more to do with OFA not taking a stance or using their voter outreach to encourage voters to vote against. If Obama has already said he’s against Amendment 1, then why not acknowledge that in the email blast? It doesn’t hurt Obama’s unopposed chances in the primary.

I’m looking for a reason to vote for either Walter Smith or Scott Bryant for NC commissioner of Ag. I can’t find any endorsements or clear distinction. Thoughts about this race? Which one would really support small farms and sustainable ag better?

I voted at around 11:30 this morning. Then I went around town, doing errands. I was stunned at how many people saw my “I voted’ sticker, and asked me if there was an election today. What rock are these people living under?????? They say we get the government we deserve, but I hate getting the government that other people deserve.

um mat, if you voted where i voted today, you would see plenty of evidence to the contrary… there was neither privilege nor education anywhere in my sight. i’ll count myself as both, but i was one out of twenty voting at the time.

Agree with you completely, Hazelite. When I was voting, the place was very busy, and the parking lot was not filled with Mercedes and BMWs. Quite the contrary! The voters were not the social elite – very ordinary folks. I’m really getting rather tired of people who insist on making politics one big conspiracy theory after another.

In a sense, mat catastrophe is correct. the elites did vote in the primary yesterday, and the two week early voting period before that.

The people who voted were an elite minority (34.37%) of people who actually cared enough to cast a ballot. The majority of people didn’t care enough to participate in deciding who would go on to the fall contests.

Excellent point, ThunderPig, and very well put. I can’t believe how many people complain about the people who get elected, but do not participate at all in the political process.

Several years ago, I saw a piece about a woman who walked for three days with three small children (one strapped to her back in a sling) so that she could vote in her country’s first democratic election. In this country, we talk about whether the turnout will be low because it’s raining. Shame on us! I vote so that my voice can be heard. And I vote for that woman, to show her that if she can make the effort, what excuse do I have not to vote?